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C# C# Streams and Data Processing Parsing Data Working with Enums

Posted by Tom Dalton
Tom Dalton
1,793 Points

Parsing US-format dates and times?

I found that the DateTime.TryParse(values[0], out gameDate) line was (silently) failing to parse the date. I suspected this might have been caused by my locale being set to UK, where we don't use the M/D/Y date format.

I managed to solve this with the following code:

DateTime gameDate;
CultureInfo culture = CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("en-US");
DateTimeStyles styles = DateTimeStyles.None;
if (DateTime.TryParse(values[0], culture, styles, out gameDate))
{
    gameResult.GameDate = gameDate;
};

Is this expected behaviour for people outside the US? Could it be caused by something other than my current Windows/OS locale?

Thomas Fletcher
Thomas Fletcher
7,284 Points

I was having the same issue - Thanks for posting Tom.

Damir Paulić
Damir Paulić
6,591 Points
Damir Paulić
Damir Paulić
6,591 Points

Had a same problem, thanks!

2 Answers

James Churchill
STAFF
James Churchill
Treehouse Teacher
James Churchill
James Churchill
Treehouse Teacher

Tom,

Yes, that's the expected behavior, as .NET by default will assume that the string you're passing to the DateTime.TryParse method is in a format that your current culture expects. The solution that you came up with is the correct workaround.

Thanks ~James

Christian Fuchs
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Christian Fuchs
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Graduate 22,017 Points
Christian Fuchs
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Christian Fuchs
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Graduate 22,017 Points

Thank you Tom Dalton had the same issue. Can anyone explain how this code work?